Hundreds of people celebrated the life of singer/songwriter Kathryn Belle Long in Tallahassee the evening of Saturday, Feb. 3. The tribute included a New Orleans-style funeral procession around Lake Ella.
The authentic sounds of Dixieland jazz led the candlelight march around the lake. Elizabeth Fravel, who knew Long for many years as both a friend and fellow musician, remembered her as one of the hardest-working people she’d ever met, combining a full-time music careeer with a teaching job at Swift Creek Middle School.
“Transitioning back and forth between her gigs with Belle and the Band and AnnaBelle Lynn and then showing up every day to teach music theatre to all those kids, I know she was tired and I know she was pushing herself, but you never would have known it from the outside. Because it was so important to her to deliver the songs that meant something to her and her audience.”
Among those songs were a salute to her Tallahassee hometown and the theme song for WFSU’s “Local Routes” TV show. Many of those songs were sung by a number of bands inside the American Legion Hall that played following the parade around Lake Ella. Kathryn Belle Long succumbed to brain cancer last May.
Long’s family has also started a scholarship foundation for students going to college to study fine arts. The program is being administered through the Leon County School’s Foundation, and will award one, $1,000 scholarship per high school, with another $250 for the student’s high school and another $250 for the students’ middle school.
So far, the organization has raised $30,000 for scholarships.
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